Ordinary Germans balk at second euro bailout

'Poor Germans are going to have to feed rich debtors,' writes Die Welt

Angela Merkel sits in an electric Smart car this week. The German chancellor told her party the struggle to save the euro was a fight to preserve the ideal of peace in Europe Photograph: Oliver Lang/AP

"The Celtic tiger is gasping for breath," declared a commentary this week in the German daily Die Süddeutsche, which highlighted the fear of many in Europe's largest economy that it will be the one that will have to provide the emergency oxygen.

That Germany will have to step in is now not in much doubt, despite denials from Ireland that it needs the help. The question being asked is precisely how much of the burden Germany would be expected to bear.

German taxpayers are still smarting from the multibillion-euro Greek bailout in May, which led to ugly headlines in the mass-market Bild about excessively profligate Greeks and how frustrated Germans were cancelling their holidays to Crete in protest at having to pay for their fellow Europeans' unchecked excesses.

Six months on, anger towards Ireland is not yet as acute, but there is growing unease about the idea of Germany having to pay yet again for a fellow European country, particularly one whose per capita annual income is around €34,000 – more than Germany's €30,000.

"The poor Germans are going to have to feed the rich debtors," wrote Die Welt, in an analysis whose acerbic undertones were only thinly disguised.

Anger is also being stoked by the growing protests from Irish and Greek leaders that Chancellor Angela Merkel has spooked the bond markets and caused a huge rise in the borrowing costs of Ireland and Portugal with her repeated suggestions that the markets and banks that financed high national debts should be forced to carry the cost of eventual defaults – not the taxpayer.

If Ireland receives an EU bailout, Germany would be responsible for coughing up about a third of the rescue funds. It is desperate to shake off its role as the eurozone's paymaster, say government insiders, but is aware that it may well be fighting a losing battle.

Meanwhile ordinary Germans are growing increasingly impatient.

"If we carry the financial can for Greece and then this Irish bailout, we will never shake off the role," said Andreas Barsche, a market vendor in Berlin. "Before we know it, it'll be Portugal next. And then Italy maybe?"

He cites the unfairness of Germany having to suffer due to the profligacy of others at a time when it should be celebrating the fact that its unemployment has fallen to a 20-year low and economic growth is expected to exceed 3% this year. Neither should it have to feel ashamed that it has a booming export market, which other European partners would like it to scale back to create more balance across the single currency. "We will not let anyone beat us up for making good products," a defiant Merkel insisted this week. "We will export 'Made in Germany' throughout the world."

But, says the 46-year-old Barsche, "that's exactly the 'devil's circle' [the Catch 22] we find ourselves in as members of the euro. We knew we were going to carry the greatest risk and responsibility, but Helmut Kohl sold it to us as our duty as Germans to do just that."

Despite its booming economy, Germany's attractiveness to investors has worsened because of the crisis and its role in any bailout. Interest rates on German government bonds, once seen as a safe haven for investors, have shot up in recent days as Germany is being increasingly perceived as a risk. On top of that, German credit default swaps, the instruments bondholders use to insure themselves against default, have risen by 21% in the last two weeks.

"Investors are demanding more protection for the simple reason that they believe rescuing the eurozone could become an expensive undertaking for Germany," said Die Welt.

Despite the predictions by some economists that Germany might choose to opt out of the eurozone, very few voices in Germany and certainly no political parties are calling for such a dramatic move.

Instead Merkel has declared the fight to save the euro as nothing less than the struggle for peace and protection against war in Europe.

"We're talking about something huge here," she said at the annual gathering of her CDU party this week. "This is about the European ideal of peace."

She added that "amid all the talk of crisis mechanisms, voting rights, contracts, stability culture, rescue packages, the IMF, currency, the European central bank," it was "easy to forget" the reason the euro had been founded in the first place.

"If the euro fails, Europe fails," she said in a soundbite which, whatever the outcome of the current crisis, is likely to become one of her more memorable lines.